You Don't Listen to Rock (1)
The sports field at Hwaryeon Middle School is on the smaller side. The grounds themselves aren't huge, but the gym hall takes up such an absurd amount of space that it skews the proportions. Because of that, events that gather the entire student body are essentially nonexistent.
The entrance ceremony welcoming first-years, the student council president candidate speeches voted on by the whole school, the festival—these are the highlights of school life, and they're all broadcast through the PA system or run on separate schedules by grade. The sports day was no different.
"We can't exactly turn it into an inter-class battle…"
"…You want to finish dead last again this year?"
It was lunchtime, and the entire student council had gathered a week before the sports day. After exams ended, we'd been surrendering lunch every single day, so this made seven consecutive days of overtime.
"Did I misread that? Are you seriously saying you want to swap the soccer roster at the last minute, Bango? We explicitly said no to this."
"That's why the troublemakers wrote it up like this. They said even transfer students have the right to participate in the sports day."
"If that kid hadn't gotten selected, we wouldn't be having this conversation."
Yujin and I sighed at the same time. The planning department head followed up by letting out a long breath and broke her silence.
"So what do we do? Handle it by the rules?"
"…Since the optics are good, we should at least appear to consider their proposal. I'm putting it to a vote."
She tapped the document with her pen a few times. "Start with the vote—split it between the White Team and the Blue Team. The other side will obviously vote against anyway. This issue should be handled by the White Team, since they proposed it."
"That's fair, but what if the White Team passes the player swap with a simple majority?"
"Then we call the captains and discuss advantages. A satisfying short-term deal is unlikely, so before we even take votes, we tell both team captains to come up with some ideas. And we make it clear that we can't really accommodate the Blue Team's wishes."
"Got it."
The Blue-White Battle—the sports day format where the entire school is split into two teams. Every event on sports day is essentially a final. Events include soccer, pickleball, group jump rope, two-on-three, tug-of-war, relay, and OX quiz. On top of that, there's the Hwaryeon Stage, a small-scale festival for earning bonus cheering points.
That's the four-line summary of Hwaryeon Middle School's sports day. In name, three homerooms form one team, but each event fields anywhere from three to six subgroups. Because of that, intra-team conflicts happen regularly, and every so often there are even conflicts right in the finals. Every year, someone suggests switching to an inter-class format to prevent this, but…
—right last year, the upperclassmen—the current third-years—had an incident where two homerooms sent full squads to every event. I don't know the details, but apparently the atmosphere among the remaining homerooms was completely in shambles. So this year's sports day was designed with two special rules to prevent disaster…
One was the Blue-White Battle. The other was the clause requiring mandatory participation in at least one event and capping participation at two. Thankfully, through the combined efforts of hardworking strategists and a bit of luck, the Blue-White Battle went through for every event across all grades. The biggest problems were averted.
"…What's this? They want to change the song now?"
In other words, minor issues still kept popping up.
"…Everyone's fine with changing the song itself, right?"
"It's the one day of the year. It should be a good day—why do we need to be so uptight about it?"
With Vice President Haneul's words, all the student council members nodded in agreement. I, too, had no objections as long as the justification wasn't completely off base, so it was a rare moment of unanimous agreement.
"Still, we should verify it… Hey-in."
"Yes…!"
"Hey-in, since you're in the music club, could you ask the music teacher for some time? We need at least a basic check before the day of, so problems don't pop up on the spot."
"Yes! I'll ask for you!"
"Thanks. And this… I'll deliver the message to the seniors myself. Oh, also tell the broadcasting club. If any team wants to swap their stage song, bring it in by tomorrow. After that, it's absolutely locked in."
"Okay."
♪♪ ♫♩ ♪—
The bell rang right as the agenda ended. I stretched and finally looked around.
"Everyone worked hard. The sports day isn't far off, so let's push through a little longer."
""Dismissed~!"
"Good work, everyone~!"
"Lord, please let tomorrow go smoothly…!"
We all clapped and stood up. Even though we'd sacrificed lunch and could've been grumpy about it, nobody complained. As student council president, it just made me grateful.
"Did you get it all down?"
"Mmhm. Ugh, why is there so much to write every day?"
"Until the sports day's over, it'll be like this every day. Whatever."
"Thanks to this, we get to see the PE teacher's face every day. It really is student council torture. Torture, I tell you."
"No life."
I bantered lightly with the secretary and stood up. After tidying the student council room and closing the door, what do you know.
"The main character has arrived."
Oh! A wild female student appears!
"Your girlfriend's here. I'm out."
"See you later."
As soon as Yujin showed up, the secretary and Haneul got up and left like it was the most natural thing in the world.
"Everyone worked hard."
I didn't want to be the one making the atmosphere awkward, so I vaguely went along with it.
"Run and I'll do a bolt tackle. Right there."
The chatterbox leaned forward with a lunge. Are you some kind of shikigami?
"Everyone, welcome her with thunderous applause~."
Look at this. Just seeing her is exhausting. If I could, I'd run, but unfortunately my type is human, not ghost. I couldn't escape.
"The meeting's over, isn't it?"
"I know. That's what makes it good."
Yujin strode forward and closed the distance. As the head of the culture department—alongside the planning department head, she was in charge of the main events of the sports day—there was nothing for me to say to this chatterbox…
"We won at pickleball, by the way."
She'd literally just come from the semifinals. Since there's no substitute player in pickleball, she'd had no choice but to skip the meeting.
"Wasn't your homeroom terrible?"
"…We're on the same team, though."
"And we were terrible, yes."
Yujin made a V with her fingers and struck several poses. Not a single one was useless—high quality all around—so I let out a helpless laugh.
"Class starts in ten minutes. Why did you come for club stuff?"
"Because I wanted to go with you. Isn't that what childhood friends are for?"
The words were already pressing against the back of my throat, ready to come out, when I barely managed to recall myself.
"…Oh, right—you're Class 1."
"Debut's right. Next period, our homeroom plays soccer against yours."
Yujin nodded and crossed her arms.
"Heh. Sorry, but it's our Class 1 that's going to shine at the sports day."
Then she stuck her chin up and huffed…
"Emergency in Class 3!! Class 3 emergency!!"
We're on the same team??
"Heh… This sports day, we're sweeping everything."
Thud, thud. Yujin bounced over and landed in front of me with arms crossed, looking every bit the victor. That absurd sight made me laugh involuntarily.
"…Okay. So that's how it's gonna be?"
"Yep. We're gonna win anyway."
"…Okay."
I just smiled and nodded.
* *
Hwaryeon Middle School is relatively open about extracurricular activities. As soon as exams ended, they didn't hold regular classes on the remaining Thursday and Friday, focusing entirely on the sports day.
Qualifying rounds and finals for each event are held during class time, and participating teams for the Hwaryeon Stage get at least two class periods for practice. Sports like soccer and pickleball, where boys and girls are split into separate events, also give the whole homeroom a chance to go together and cheer as one.
—Like right now.
"One more goal! One more goal!"
"Seol Yujin! You're the hero of our neighborhood!!"
"Avenge the pickleball!!"
Class 1 vs. Class 3—Blue Team civil war. Three minutes left until the match ends. The score is 1–4, and our homeroom is leading perfectly. We've got the ball. Honestly, we could just pass it around and coast to a comfortable finish…
"Chargeeee!!"
"Gotta pull off a hat trick!"
But we ran anyway. Even a cool sportsman would. It wasn't about lifting team morale before the finals either. The goal was clear from the start.
"Block him! Mark him!!"
"Just stick to that guy!! Defenders, swarm him!!"
Following the Class 1 captain's orders, the defenders closed in on me. But—
Defense positions are always occupied by friends who couldn't care less about soccer. Plus, Hwaryeon Middle School's field is on the small side…
In the end, middle school soccer is at best a slapstick comedy. No matter how short I am, they couldn't stop someone who'd been doing various sports and soccer since elementary school.
"Bring it forward!"
Kim Min-ho's strong command from elementary school hit, and the central midfielder who'd received the ball drove it easily upfield. Space opened up as the pressuring defenders from our side chased Min-ho. Thwap! Min-ho and I burst out of the box at the same time.
The Class 1 defenders scrambled to figure out what was happening, and the midfielder slipped the ball to the winger and broke through the side.
"Hell with this—!"
Any more goals conceded was unacceptable. With that thought, Class 1's ace players all surged toward the winger. Bang! Just before getting marked, the winger lofted the ball long to the midfielder, and Min-ho and I charged toward the midfielder to receive a short pass. Naturally, the defenders ordered to mark me closely were one beat behind…
"Yo, mark that guy no matter what!"
The one getting the most coverage was none other than me, who was about to pull off a hat trick. For a split second, five players closed in on me. That was the key. Whoosh—Min-ho, suddenly stripped of his defenders, received the ball.
Like the ace he is, he charged into the box and grabbed the opportunity. Meanwhile, I went into the box to draw the defenders…
This was it—if I put it in, that's all she wrote. Even if I missed, we were already winning, so I might as well just blast it.
—Shot. But the guy suddenly pulled back from attacking and retreated to the side. Naturally, the defenders who saw no chance of scoring all swarmed forward.
"Yusuke!!"
At that moment, a soaring ball accompanied by an outside shout. Soaring impossibly high into the blinding sky, a precise lobe pass that left the defenders in the dust—I chased after it on instinct…
Thwack!! I brought my head down and smashed it powerfully toward the inside of the left goalpost.
"Nice play."
Whoooosh—the sound of the ball nestling into the net followed.
"Game over!!"
"KYAAAA!!"
"Are you out of your mind?!"
The referee's whistle and a roar of cheers erupted. The guys from our homeroom came running at us—
"Heyheyhey!"
But faster than that, Min-ho screamed at me.
"Yusuke!!"
And then that stone-hearted guy who clearly heard everything.
"Yusukeeee!!"
When I didn't answer right away, Min-ho screamed again. With no choice, I raised my voice as much as I could while trying to suppress my embarrassment…
"Horo…to!!"
Wadadada!! The guy charged at me doing a Naruto run. I had no choice but to run in a similar vein…
"Denied. Not doing it."
"Ahh—."
I just walked normally toward where the Class 1 girls were. Min-ho probably looked disappointed, but the Min-ho facing my back didn't exist as far as I was concerned.
The reason I'd been so viciously trying to win was for one reason only.
"Yujin-ah."
"……."
"I won, didn't I?"
King of the losing side. I wanted to see the forced smile and the twitching of the expression muscles beneath it.
"Yujin-ah. You haven't forgotten my face, have you?"
From the biggest crowd—centered on my childhood friend—I called out with all the heat I could muster.
"Oh… I didn't see you for a second, something must've gotten in my eye…"
"It's fine. That can happen."
"R-Right…?"
"So, Yujin-ah."
Heh.
"Your childhood friend won—don't you want to congratulate me?"
I deliberately kept a blank expression and tilted my head. Yujin's girls nearby all muttered things like "the worst" and "what a brat," but…
Not my business.
"Yujin-ah, our Blue Team won, you know?"
"…Congrats."
Yujin smiled as brightly as she could. True to her acting hobby, the smile itself was decent enough, but…
"Cheer for the finals too? Don't hate the other team too much."
Chae Yujin Specialist. Professor of Chae Yujin Studies, Honorary. Since I knew exactly what moments made Yujin angry, I deliberately walked up close and slung my arm around her shoulder.
After that…
"Oh, right—didn't we also lose at tug-of-war and table tennis? Our homeroom won tug-of-war though."
I whispered sweet nothings in her ear.
"Get lostoooo!!"
I dodged the flailing childhood friend and ran.
There's club practice after school, but what does that matter—would I really not do well in the future?
"We came in fourth! That's not bad. If you're feeling too down, root for our homeroom. We're on the same Blue Team, after all."
"Get lost! Wait—why did you come for club stuff?!"
Hmm. It was an afternoon where the student council stress was cleanly resolved.
* *
That afternoon, the music room.
"One—never again. Two—won't stir up trouble. One!"
"Never again…"
"Two!!"
"Won't stir up trouble…."
I held an electric guitar over my head and did squats to calm down Yujin, who was furious.
…I'm the victim here. You provoked me first.
"One!"
"Never again…"
"Your voice is too quiet!!"
"Hnngh…! Never again…!"
"Two!!"
"Won't stir up trouble…!!"
…I'm really getting screwed over here.